


Youths in Asia

by Geonn



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: China, Episode: s04e13 Sanctuary for None: part 2, F/M, Immortality, Kimono, Male-Female Friendship, Romance, Romantic Friendship, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 18:53:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nikola Tesla and Helen Magnus visit the only place where they can feel young.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Youths in Asia

**Author's Note:**

> The quote about five lifetimes comes from Olivia Harrison, speaking about George Harrison.

The terms were relative, and depended entirely upon the nationality of the person using them. Old, to an American, was a hundred years. To a Brit or European, something wasn't truly old until it hit the half-century mark. But in China, old had a four-digit age. Amid the ancient ruins of Beijing, even a vampire and his three-hundred-plus year old companion could feel awed by the history surrounding them. 

Nikola was still surprised by Helen's appearance at his doorstep. He wasn't surprised she found him; it was common knowledge to those who knew him that he spent the occasional summer scouring the Forbidden City for evidence of the great vampire race. Artifacts, references, anything that could fill in the cavernous blanks in the history of his people. The only year he'd skipped was 2008, when the Olympics overtook the city. A gathering of the world's greatest athletes who were all followed by odorous and obese tourists and equally obnoxious news organizations. He spent that summer exploring caverns in Africa.

But he was nevertheless surprised by Helen's arrival. Their relationship had been different since the destruction of the Old City Sanctuary. Her kiss had lingered on his lips, seared there by the heat of the explosion. Though it was weeks before she confirmed her survival to him, he couldn't manage to be angry at her. She was alive, she had survived, and she won. That was the only thing that mattered to him.

The first night, she treated him to dinner in her hotel room. "Everything has changed. A new home, new allies. Even you've changed, Nikola. During the final stand against Addison and Caleb, I was able to trust you entirely. I hadn't felt that since Oxford. It was nice to see the old you again."

He smiled and sipped his wine. "I must admit, these past four years have been more amazing than the past sixty. What I really want to know is... when was it you, and when was it her?" Helen tilted her head in confusion and waited for him to elaborate. "Young William explained about your days as Helen Bancroft. He also said you would often drop in on friends posing as your appropriate self. So how often was I meeting with the true Helen Magnus and how often was it the one with foreknowledge?"

"It would drive you mad to try figuring it out." She flashed that enigmatic smile and Nikola couldn't help returning it. That was what made Helen Magnus so maddening; she could so easily make you feel she knew more than she was letting on it was impossible to tell if she was just enigmatic or if she was working on future information.

"Fine. Be mysterious."

"I must. It's the only thing I can count on."

He looked at her over the rim of his glass. "You know that isn't so, Helen. William, Kate, Heinrich. Me." Her eyes met his, and he looked away. The room was silent for a long time after that. When Helen finally rose, she extended a hand to him and led him to the bedroom. They undressed each other and spooned in the middle of the narrow bed. She slept, but he remained awake all night. Though his body responded to the proximity of her body, the warmth of her hip where it curved against his lap, he remained a perfect gentleman. When she shifted in her sleep and his hand grazed the swell of one breast, he only let it linger a moment before returning it to her stomach.

In the morning, she left while he was in the shower. He emerged with a towel around his waist to find a note stuck to the mirror. "It wouldn't have been taking advantage. But thank you. I would have accepted sex, but my true need was companionship and closeness. You provided it in spades. As you said, Nikola, I can indeed count on you."

He wore pressed slacks and a white shirt for that day's sojourn into the city. His hair was tamed and wet down; Helen wasn't the only one who occasionally needed a change in hair style, and he knew from experience that he looked atrocious as a blonde. He wandered the Forbidden City and wondered again, as he always did, how mere mortals coped with the disappointment of knowing they would never see everything in the magnificent collection in their lifetime. Even for a vampire, it was questionable.

On his way back to the hotel he stopped at an upscale merchant and searched his wares for the perfect item. He found it, balked slightly at the price tag, but handed over the yuan and took his purchase back to the hotel room. He didn't know if he should expect Helen to return, had no idea where she'd come from or where she'd gone, but something told him she would be there. He hung the gift where it would be seen immediately upon entrance and began preparing dinner.

Helen entered without knocking and stared at the kimono with her hand on the door. She finally closed it behind her and stepped forward. She took the sleeve between the fingers of her right hand and rubbed it, eyeing the design. Red wasn't exactly her color, but she had a feeling it would work. She turned and saw him watching her expectantly.

"This must have been a fortune."

"I refuse to accept a shoddy product just to save a few dimes. And when in Rome..." He shrugged. "Dinner is nearly ready, if you would like to change..."

Helen took the kimono off the hook and draped it across her arm. She stroked the material and looked up to meet his eye. "Thank you, Nikola." She kissed his cheek and then his lips, all too briefly holding contact before she turned away and disappeared into the bedroom. Nikola waited until she was out of sight before he drew breath, unsure what to do with his hands. Perhaps it was best Helen had never given him a chance. If he was left flustered by two fleeting kisses, how would he cope with one filled with full-fledged passion?

He finished preparing their meal and set the places on the table. He was about to check on her progress when Helen emerged from the bedroom wearing her gift. 

Her hair was up, held in place by crossed chopsticks, and her hands were just barely visible in the voluminous sleeves of the gown. When she walked, he could see she was wearing split-toed socks without sandals. She smoothed down the obi over her stomach, straightened her shoulders, and nodded toward the food. 

"I was thinking we'd be more comfortable on the balcony."

Nikola found his voice. "Of course."

They carried their plates to the balcony and sat down. Nikola stretched his legs out in front of him, while Helen folded her feet underneath and settled on them like a properly-trained geisha. The hair, the kimono, and the posture truly helped to sell the illusion, and she turned her head quickly enough to catch him staring. He didn't look away, as a gentleman might. He let her watch as he examined the slope of her neck, the way the collar of her gown rested against it. She looked good in red, and the gold accents caught the setting sun and made it look like the gown was aflame. Helen Magnus, the phoenix from the ashes. He couldn't help smiling.

"So, Helen Magnus begins another lifetime. What shall it be this time? Perhaps this time you'll be a lesbian and only entertain female suitors."

Helen smiled. "No matter the lifetime, I shall always be omnisexual."

"Men, women, Abnormals. What else?"

"Vampires."

He looked at her and saw she was smiling. "We've been classmates, enemies, reluctant allies. Why not a lifetime where we're lovers?" She watched the sun set, its rays refracting through the smog to create a deceptively beautiful light show. "You can have everything across five lifetimes, or you can have one really intense life. As much as I bemoan my longevity, I cannot imagine trying to live my life in a single generation. In all likelihood I'd have been dead by the time of the Second World War. It's unimaginable."

"Mm. For us, too. The idea of a world _sans_ Magnus hardly bears imagining."

"I've seen that world. It was... not a bright place."

"Well, you can rest assured that no matter how old we get, there will always be at least one place on Earth where we feel relatively youthful." He gestured at the city with his cup.

"And yet we're still old enough to remember it under a different name."

"Names come and go. This city, no matter what it was called, has been in this place since the fifteen century. Makes us relative juveniles."

Helen clucked her tongue. "Oh, Nikola. You're juvenile no matter where you are."

Nikola smiled and started eating. Food wasn't necessary, but he enjoyed the process of breaking bread with a fine companion. He crossed his feet at the ankles as the sun finally vanished. It was the time of the fictional vampire, when they exited their Gothic crypts and hunted in the gloaming. Poppycock. People needed to believe something like a vampire could be killed so easily. Holy relics, garlic, sunlight... they were as effective as a security blanket in the face of a true sanguine vampiris. But one vampire did have one weakness. He looked at her, at the point where the collar of her kimono fell open to reveal a bit of her décolletage. He could see beads of moisture on the skin and, when he inhaled, his heightened senses detected the scent of her perfume.

"Helen... if you choose to spend the night again, I can't promise I'll be a gentleman."

"Who is asking you to be?"

He smiled and looked back out over the ancient city, old even by their standards. Later, they would retire to the bedroom where Helen would turn her back and let Nikola undo the belt of her kimono. He would sit on the bed and let her undress him, and then the red and white silk would cascade down her body like she was shedding the flames to be reborn. She would straddle him, and he would finally be inside of her, tasting the curve of her breast as she rose and fell on his erection until one of them finally succumbed to the pleasure. After that, it would be fingers and tongues to finish the job for the other, and then a second round could be plotted.

He looked at Helen and saw she was most likely thinking the same thing. He sipped his wine, refusing to rush through dinner for the dessert. 

In this city, unlike any other, it was easy to remember they had all the time in the world.


End file.
